


RETURN TO SENDER

by etherealanything



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Letters, Some Semblance of Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25841662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherealanything/pseuds/etherealanything
Summary: Elle never responds, but JJ keeps on sending letters anyway.
Relationships: Elle Greenaway/Jennifer "JJ" Jareau
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	RETURN TO SENDER

**Author's Note:**

  * For [axsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/axsun/gifts).



> dedicated to @ssa-lesbian for sending me the headcanon that inspired all this angst; love you!!

When Elle leaves the Behavioral Analysis Unit for the last time, walking a straight line from Hotch’s office to the elevator doors, she doesn’t spare a glance back. She’ll wish she had, later, taken it in one more time before it became nothing more than a memory teeming with ghosts. As it is though, she walks briskly, head down. If she stops for a moment, her legs will take her to JJ’s office, and she’ll feel compelled to explain herself, to stammer out apologies. She can’t afford that, not right now.

She hasn’t given her landlord her two weeks, but Elle appeases the old man by paying the last month right then and there. It’s the least she can do. For weeks now, she’s been pacing the building hallways at night, flinching at every sound. Her walls may be clean, but nothing can wipe away what happened, who she’s become. 

It’s nearing midnight, but Elle needs to get out of the city before daylight, before the second thoughts set in. Efficiently, numbly, she packs a single suitcase, taking only what she needs. Her fingers linger over a mug JJ had given her and she allows herself the one sentimentality, wrapping it gently in a t-shirt.

(She breaks that mug, later, hurls it against the wall when looking at it becomes too much)

By the time the first rays of the sun come over the horizon, Elle has left her old life far behind. She drives north up the interstate, trying not to cry. _It will be good for you,_ she tells herself. _You can go back to who you were before._ She’s not sure she remembers who that is. 

Her mother sweeps her into a hug when Elle arrives on her doorstep. She doesn’t ask why, and for that, Elle is grateful. She can’t help but be reminded of how JJ understood her without words, knew when she needed to be left alone and when she needed to be comforted, loved deeply until she began to feel like herself again. They had lost some of that connection in the last weeks, but there was still a familiarity between that couldn’t be erased. Elle stifles a sob against her mother’s shoulder at the knowledge that whatever bond they had is surely broken now.

The first letter to appear in Elle’s mailbox nearly gives her a heart attack. She’s late for work, having trouble sleeping again, but she figures that checking the mail won’t make her later than she already is. She’d know that handwriting anywhere, the looping letters making her heart flutter despite everything. With trembling hands, she reaches for the envelope, putting it into her purse before hurrying to catch the next bus.

Later that day, Elle stares at the envelope lying on her kitchen counter. She can’t bring herself to open it, though she wants nothing more. It’s been more than a month since she left, but the letter makes it feel like it all happened yesterday. 

JJ’s probably furious with her. Elle would be, if someone left her without so much as a goodbye. 

In all honesty, though, she thinks she could deal with anger. Someone else’s anger is easy enough to counter with your own, with sharp words and billowing rage. Elle has always defended her decisions tooth and nail, and she stands by what she did that night.

What she can’t deal with is disappointment. And JJ should be disappointed. Elle failed them, all of them, but especially the girl who’d loved her, the one she’d been too broken to love back. 

She knows that even a single word of that letter, a scrawled “Dear Elle,” would be enough to break her. But what Elle wouldn’t give to read it. She wonders, briefly, pathetically, if the letter would smell like JJ’s perfume. It had been an intoxicating smell, but already the memory is losing some of its clarity.

Even though she’s made up her mind, Elle can’t quite bring herself to throw the letter away. It sits on the counter for days, taunting her, daring her to open it. Eventually, she tucks the envelope under her bed, thinking about it during many sleepless nights.

More letters arrive. Elle borrows a cardboard box from her downstairs neighbor, drops the letters in there, and puts them in the back of her closet. Out of sight, out of mind, goes the proverb, but Elle quickly finds that to be patently wrong.

She never responds, doesn’t open a single one, but JJ never stops sending them. The one that arrives on Elle’s birthday is heavier than usual, and her nails are under the seal before she stops herself. Putting the letter in the box makes her stomach twinge with more regret than usual, and even kicking the box roughly back into the closet can’t get rid of the feeling.

Sometimes Elle drafts answers in her mind, letters she won’t send. _I love you,_ she says, _but you deserve so much more than me._ She’s never been one for poetry, but the words spill out of her without trying. _You are the sun, so full of warmth and righteous fury alike, and I would only cloud you over._ Those are the sentimental days. Other times, she is reduced to single sentences, a litany, a prayer. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

In a year, the box is full, and Elle knows what she has to do. She’s doing better now, a different kind of better than she’d once been, but it’s progress all the same. There are nightmare-less nights now, and days that don’t pass in a haze. But her fresh start won’t be complete as long as the letters keep coming. Each one still makes her want to run back to D.C, collapse weeping into JJ’s arms. 

One evening, she closes the dented box and seals it carefully with masking tape. JJ’s address is imprinted into her mind, though Elle hasn’t thought about writing back in weeks. RETURN TO SENDER, she prints in block capitals. She hopes JJ will understand.

Elle will never stop loving her, never stop wishing it had ended any other way. But there’s no undoing what’s been done. It’s too late for her to go back now, has been too late since the day she didn’t stop to say goodbye. That night, Elle dreams of a blonde girl with a brilliant smile and a sparkle in her eyes and almost doesn’t wake up crying.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream about jelle with me on tumblr @ellegreenawy


End file.
